Andrea SannaIt doesn’t take much to bring homophobes out of their caves
During the Fast5 Netball Tournament in New Zealand, the Australian Kelpies wowed the crowd with their warm-up dance before their match against South Africa. The crowd went wild for their version of NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye” dance from the film “Deadpool & Wolverine”. And after a news report, a video of the dance was posted on X, prompting several homophobic slurs towards the players.
“Congratulations, literally no man will ever watch this team play a single game again.”
“No boy will ever want to be associated with men’s netball after this, how embarrassing.”
“Take men’s netball back 100 years“.
These are just some of the comments received, but despite the backlash, Liam Forcadilla, captain of the Australia Kelpies, responded to ABC Sport in Australia.
“Deadpool could be categorised as a very masculine film, so it’s a bit disconcerting that people are quick to come back and say it’s gay or feminine. (…) If you look at the people who make those comments, it’s often people who don’t understand netball and they take it out of context and say it’s a gay dance. Fortunately we have a great culture in the Australian men’s netball community and we’re all very confident, whether we’re gay or straight, everyone is supportive. (…) It says a lot about our players and the great relationship they have with their masculinity. (…) It’s a wonderful response that I wish more athletes would adopt when faced with homophobia.”
The Australian Kelpies went on to beat South Africa.
